


The Last Goodbye

by alekstraordinary



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bilbo goes to say goodbye to Thorin, Farewells, Feelings, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, I suppose, Last Goodbye, M/M, Thorin is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 09:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20374540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekstraordinary/pseuds/alekstraordinary
Summary: After giving up the Ring and travelling back to the Mountain with some of his old companions, Bilbo does what he came there for in the first place--to say his last goodbye to Thorin.





	The Last Goodbye

It was… cold, and dark in there. Bilbo, with as much knowledge of Dwarven ways he had and more than any Hobbit could pride themselves with, should have expected that even the great bellows of Erebor wouldn’t be quite enough to spread the heat this deep and this far into the Mountain, yet still, a rather unexpected chill went through his old bones as he followed one of his old companions further and further down. Quite a few years have passed since he had last been here, and it certainly seemed as though the Dwarven kingdom truly thrived under Dáin’s reign--something that was expected, yet still very much pleasing and satisfying to see. Erebor was nothing like Bilbo remembered it--ruined, dark and cold, forgotten for so many years while a dragon slept deep within its guts. The Mountain had returned to its nearly forgotten glory, pulsating with life and riches. 

However, gold and food and not even the Company were the direct reasons for Bilbo’s stay. So, so many years had passed since he had last been here, since last his feet had carried him across the great halls and gloomy corridors, since he had last listened to the winds howling through the cracks in old stone and a promise of something that, in the end, only brought him heartache. Even now, so close to his goal and the point of repeating his journey from years ago, Bilbo didn’t feel ready for what was waiting for him deeper inside the Mountain. If it wasn’t for the impending threat of death looming over him ever since leaving Bag End--and Frodo--behind, he probably wouldn’t had mustered enough courage to face this even now. Hadn’t he know it was his last chance, he probably still wouldn’t be ready.

“I will wait for you here,” Bofur said, his voice oddly quiet and without the flair it usually had. Though Dwarves rarely showed any signs of aging until they approached the last decade of their lives, there were a few strands of silver in the midst of Bofur’s dark hair, showing that, despite everything, many years have passed since their Journey came to an end. “You can take as much time as you need. And, Bilbo?” he asked. “ It’s… good to have you back here. Home.”

As quick-witted as the Hobbit usually was, he found himself rather unable to find the right words to respond to that. Was Erebor his home? No, certainly not. Perhaps, in another life, were things to happen differently, it would had been, however he cannot deny that even in this life, with the things being as they were, he still left a big part of himself here, all this time ago. He just nodded at Bofur, silently, before taking a deep breath and he stepping into the chamber. The silence of it was so impossibly overbearing that Bilbo felt the ringing of it in his ears, his eyes adjusting to the far less well-lit room, yet strangely bright, just enough for him to see everything that was there to see. 

They were all buried together, the three of them--the King with his Crown Princes at his sides, and the mere realization of that was enough to make Bilbo’s lip quiver, right before he caught it between his teeth to steady it, paying attention to his breaths, desperately trying to keep himself together. He couldn’t bear to look at the side tombs, not even now. Whoever journeyed with him on the Quest to take the Mountain back, knew that the King loved his heirs more like his own sons, rather than the ones of his sister’s, and as the time spent together went on, so did Bilbo. Kίli and Fίli were  _ theirs  _ and they had fallen tragically young, never seeing the greatness of the place that was supposed to be their home, and yet forever remained but a tale in the heads of two Dwarves who barely made it out of childhood.

Bilbo’s knees felt weak, slightly, as he stepped across the chamber to the main tomb, his wrinkled hand reaching out to touch the unbearably cold stone and letting his shaking fingers run over the runes carved to the side of it, the sharp edges and deep cuts forming to announce that:

_ Here lies Thorin II Oakenshield, son of Durin, King under the Mountain _

“Hello,  _ amrâlimê _ ," Bilbo said and he sounded impossibly small and fragile, trembling at every syllable against his best efforts. "I'd missed you." 

There was nothing but silence to respond, nothing but the air filling the room, nothing but three, quiet, cold tombs. But that didn’t matter--he did not come there looking for answers, for even though the wound in his chest still ached after over sixty years, he had learned to live with it and make his peace with it. He did not come there hoping that seeing the tomb with his own two eyes would heal his soul or make all the pain go away. He came there to say his last goodbye. 

He squeezed his cane a bit tighter, grounding himself in the moment and keeping himself together despite the unbearable pain tormenting his soul. He hoped that the walls of the Mountain’s tomb chambers were thick enough to keep his words here, that not a single ragged breath or shivering letter would slip past the door to where Bofur was waiting. Bilbo loved his friend dearly, of course he did, and trusted him immensely, but this one time, what he wanted to say was directed for one person and one person only. It was enough that Fίli and Kίli, those two troublemakers were there as well, no doubt keeping their ears out to listen.

“I… ah, I know it’s been a while, so to say,” Bilbo muttered, his hand still stroking the tombstone as gently as if it was the dark, silver-specked hair he remembered so painfully well. “But I suppose I couldn’t really come before now. The first few years after I came back to Bag End… Well, truthfully, Thorin, I don’t remember those first few years too well. I remember coming back thinner, richer and much, much sadder, but then it all blends into a blur, of sorts. Wasn’t it for Frodo, my nephew, I’m not sure if I would ever shake myself out of that mourning. I had to take care of him, but now he’s a Hobbit grow, thirty-three he is. He can make it without me…”

Bilbo paused, closed his dangerously watering eyes and drew a sharp breath, his eyebrows scrunching and head tilting to the side as speaking of Frodo touched a sore part of him. “He’s… he’s a Baggins, my Frodo. He’s absolutely nothing like either Kίli or Fίli, or at least his looks are not, but at times, when I saw him wandering through the Shire, sometimes he reminded me of them so, so much…” His voice broke for a moment. One second, two, three, and then he pressed out further: “It only makes what I forced upon him worse.”

All three of the tombs remain equally silent as they were for years before Bilbo’s arrival as the Hobbit rubbed a hand over his face, the ringing of quietness slowly turning into a headache. “I gave him the mithril tunic _ , _ ” he admitted, with a bit of shame to his voice. “I know it was a gift from you, and I know how much meaning in held--although I suppose I’d realized it far too late--but, please, don’t take it the wrong way,  _ amrâlimê.  _ The boy will need it more than me. And you’re always with me, are you not? No matter the possession I have left of you.”

He sniffled, his lip trembling again. “Oh, and I planted that acorn in my garden. You should see how big it grew. You could say that… that even after years I’ve always had an oak to shield me from harm, don’t you think, Thorin?”

Tears were falling from Bilbo’s blue eyes, the mourning and pain he’d carried inside of him for sixty-odd years slipping out. There was no point in holding it back anymore--saying all the things he’d wish he could say to those stormy blue eyes was the point of his visit. “I, uhm. I know that Frodo will manage on his own. I gave this boy all I could for twenty-one years, and I think I raised him as a good, kind and brave Hobbit. He’ll manage on his own, I know he will. But I… I’m dying,  _ amrâlimê.  _ I know my time is coming, and I…”

His hand rested on the stone again, his thumb caressing the sharp lines forming Thorin’s name. “I prayed. To Mahal, I mean. I prayed to him each night for years, but I don’t know if he’s even heard me once. I’m not a Dwarf, after all, but I still prayed that, even… even if he doesn’t let me join you and the rest of the Company in his Hall, that he… he would at least let me… let me see you once more, after I’m gone.” 

He was crying now, sobbing, unashamed bitter tears streaming down his face marked with deep furrows put there by the passage of time. “I’m… I’m so, so sorry, Thorin. Hadn’t it been for me, for my recklessness and for my blind belief in my own luck, maybe then… then…” Bilbo’s voice trailed off completely as a whine shuddered his weak frame, his shoulders jumping as he covered his face with his hand. Sixty years had he kept all of this deep inside, fearing that acknowledging it or letting himself to mourn properly would make it more real than it already was, but here he was now: at the age of hundred and eleven, as far away from the Shire as no Hobbit had ever been, crying his eyes out over the grave of the only person he had ever truly loved. 

This far into Erebor, not even the bells announcing hours could be heard, no doubt crafted and placed this way on purpose, not wanting to disturb the peace of the dead, and as such, Bilbo had no way of knowing how much time he had spent there, between the tombs of Thorin, Fίli and Kίli, crying and pouring himself out. Some might say he was pouring his  _ heart  _ out to three dead Dwarves, but that wouldn’t be quite right. Bilbo lost his heart on Raven Hill, and he had never been the same Hobbit again. 

“I so very miss you,” he croaked when he could take a breath again, as he lied his fingers over Thorin’s name carved into the tombstone one last time. “I can only hope that I will see you again, but if Mahal should decide against it, know that I loved you all my life. Farewell,  _ amrâlimê. _ ”

And then he left, keeping his grey head as up as he could afford at his age, but leaning on his cane a little heavier than he did walking in. Despite his eyes being red and his face wet, Bofur spoke nothing of it, which Bilbo was more than grateful for. 

“Let’s go back, Bilbo,” the Dwarf just said, putting a reassuring hand on Bilbo’s shoulder. “There is a whole feast waiting for you. It doesn’t happen every day that the very Master Bilbo Baggins who helped get the Mountain back pays a visit.”

“It’s not, indeed,” the old Hobbit nodded, following Bofur back up the many flights of stairs. “It’s good to be back.”

He did not look behind, and although it felt like the gaping wound he carried in his chest since Raven Hill opened again, he felt at more peace than he did for the past sixty-odd years. He said what he wanted to say, and he didn’t have the faintest shade of doubt that Thorin had heard him as much as he didn’t doubt that Kίli and Fίli did, too. He spoke his goodbye, which despite being intending to be the last, he hoped it wouldn’t have to be.


End file.
